


Questions

by idrilhadhafang



Series: Star Wars, Episode IX: The Edge of Darkness [8]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Cousins, Episode IX, F/M, Gen, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Kylo Ren Redemption, Kylo Ren and Rey Are Related, Minor Finn/Rey, POV Rey (Star Wars), Redeemed Ben Solo, Rey Needs A Hug, Rey Skywalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 15:58:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12844572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang
Summary: Rey has questions for Ben.





	Questions

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

He’s still healing from the battle with Snoke. Rey hasn’t thought that she would actually visit Kylo Ren in the medbay —

Except is he Kylo Ren anymore? She can’t say if that’s the case. Is he Ben Solo, is he Kylo Ren? Maybe he’s both. Rey doesn’t quite know. 

They’re still working on repairing the facial scar that Rey gave him, along with other wounds. Apparently Doctor Kalonia was pretty appalled when she saw the full extent of the damage that Kylo Ren had suffered. Rey can’t say she’s surprised, actually. Snoke is — was — not a gentle man. 

Even as Rey enters the medical bay, she’s surprised at what she sees. There’s something about Ben, the former Kylo Ren, where he seems vulnerable without his mask. She wonders if that was why he removed it when they met for the first time in fourteen years — to make her feel more “comfortable”, by his definition. To make her feel more like they were equals, even though they were anything but. Ben looks up at her, smiles. “Hello, Jaina.”

”Hello,” she says, awkwardly. She doesn’t quite know what to say to a former Knight of Ren, who happens to be her cousin. 

“You look troubled.”

”Don’t do that,” Rey says. 

“Do what?”

”Say things like that. It’s...not right."

Ben merely nods.

”I had some questions for you. A lot of them.”

Another nod. 

“How could you, Ben?”

”I thought I was doing what was right.”

“You weren’t.”

”And I know that now."

Silence.

”I’ve also been asking questions about...my family.” Rey doesn’t want to ask questions to a former Knight of Ren; she’s still not quite comfortable. But even so...she’s asked Poe, to name one. She’s talked with her mother’s ghost, and she doesn’t quite forgive her mother for leaving her, or her father. What had been so awful about her that her parents didn’t want her?

“Have you?”

“There’s still a lot I don’t understand, a lot I don’t remember." Rey’s voice is soft all the while. "It’s like it’s blocked off.”

”You...” Ben swallows. “You were a good kid. Very funny. Very vibrant. And believe me, when you went missing, I would have given up everything to find you.”

Rey has to appreciate the irony — her cousin, who would later turn to the Dark Side, being the only one who searched for her when she was essentially abandoned on Jakku. 

“I can’t believe you were still looking for me,” she says. 

“Jaina...would you doubt that I cared for you?”

Rey bites her lip. She doesn’t deny it. In a truly twisted way, Kylo Ren had cared for her. This man...she doesn’t know what to think of him. He’s done good. But can he wash all the blood off his hands, she wonders. 

“I don’t forgive you for what you did to me,” she says. “Or anyone else.”

”I don’t blame you.”

”But you did...good in the end.”

“I couldn’t let him hurt you.”

”Why? You didn’t have any problem torturing me.” A beat. “Did you know?”

“When I saw you on Takodana, I thought you were Jaina. The buns in your hair...you wore your hair exactly like you did when you were just a youngling. But when FN...the stormtrooper, called you ‘Rey’, I thought that I’d made a mistake. That it was a coincidence. I suspected that there was something too coincidental throughout the interrogation, but it wasn’t until the Starkiller planet that I realized who you really were. I feel foolish for not realizing sooner. The interrogations always gave me no pleasure, but — ’’

”Forget ‘but’,” Rey says. “You could have stopped at any time.”

”I could have,” Ben says, and he sounds like he hasn’t thought of it before. 

“I don’t forgive you,” she says. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to you when you get out of here.” She sighs. “Be well, Ben.”

She leaves. Finn puts a hand on her shoulder. “You okay?” he says. 

“I’m not,” Rey says. “But hopefully we'll all be.”


End file.
